Design verification is a common process for testing a newly designed integrated circuit, board, or system-level architecture, to, for example, confirm that it complies with the requirements defined by the specification of the architecture for that device. Design verification for a device under test (DUT) may be performed on the actual device, but can usually be a simulation model of the device is tested.
Verification of electronic designs typically has three forms. At an early stage, before the electronic design is implemented in hardware, simulation can be conducted on a model of the design. Another form can be emulation, in which one electronic hardware is used to mimic the behavior of another (tested) electronic hardware. At more advanced stages of design development a system on chip can be validated, in a process which is typically referred to as post-silicon validation. Post-silicon validation can be a last stage in the electronic design development, for example, before it is manufactured.
Post-silicon validation tests can be carried out on actual devices running at speed on realistic system boards, the results of which can be assessed by a logic analyzer and other validation tools.